


For Reasons Unknown

by NitroJen



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Challenge fic, M/M, NO CAPES, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements, batfam reversebang, possibly dubcon, some slight DickBabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:38:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NitroJen/pseuds/NitroJen
Summary: Jason Todd woke up one morning and the last three years of his life had all vanished. One thing he realized, was that there was someone, or something behind it. He follows a strange feeling in his chest to figure out what it is that's drawing him closer, and how exactly he's supposed to get his memories back.For Batfamily Reverse Big Bang 2017.





	For Reasons Unknown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pentapus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/gifts).



> Many thanks to Penta for the amazing art that inspired this fic. Art piece is at the bottom of the fic.

“I love you, Jason Todd.”

Jason felt himself drift out of a dream and back into wakefulness. The brightness of morning showed through the windows and pierced through Jason’s eyelids. He pressed his face into the pillow and groaned reaching out and touching nothing. That wasn’t right. Jason opened his eyes and looked at the empty space on the bed next to him. He expected it to be warm, or even tossed aside like its occupant had slid out of bed and not bothered putting the bedding back into place. Jason sat up and rubbed his eyes, then stopped when he took in the room around him.

The bedroom was spacious, the walls painted a light blue with dark wood floors and a soft carpet laid over it. It was nice, but not Jason’s taste. It was also not the small, cramped bedroom in his shitty Gotham apartment. He could see books that belonged to him, or looked like they did, spread throughout the room. There was one on the nightstand, a few more on the dresser, and even a small bookshelf. He wondered if he slept with someone and ended up at their place somehow. This house felt familiar, like Jason had been here before. Almost like it was his house. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

Jason got out of bed and tried to shake the unease as he went over to the dresser. There were pictures of him there, one of him smiling and laughing, another one where he was sitting in a chair reading. There were other pictures too, blurry backgrounds and an elephant, but the frames were absent of any people. The unease in his stomach grew along with a strange sense of dread. Inside the dresser were shirts, _his_ shirts. The megadeth shirt had the same hole near the bottom left hem, the Breaking Benjamin shirt had the same stain over the right sleeve where Jason had been tossed an open sharpie by one of his friends and it had hit his bicep.

Further investigation around the room revealed that the items inside were his. All the books were dog eared and marked in the same places, and his mother’s old rosary was in the nightstand. Jason went to the closet and checked behind the door. The safe from his old apartment was there. He opened it and inside were his social security card and passport, two things he expected. There was also a blank sheet of heavy paper, a college degree, and the deed to his house. The date on the degree was in the future though, a year from what Jason thought it was. He closed the safe and pinched himself. He had to be dreaming.

“Wake up,” Jason growled as he closed his eyes, trying to jerk himself out of this nightmare. “Wake up, Todd, wake up.”

He went to the nightstand and picked up his phone. It said March 20, but Jason could have sworn it was May. The calendar was also lit up with events. Apparently the circus was in town and Jason had to get there early. He typed in the pin and the phone opened. This couldn’t have been his phone, but a look through the messages revealed conversations with friends of his. They went back months and months and Jason didn’t remember a single one. He opened the calendar again and dropped his phone when he saw the date.

It couldn’t be right. Jason closed his eyes. He set his phone down. He reset it. He checked online. It didn’t change though.

Jason sat down on the floor and put his head in his hands. This wasn’t a prank. It couldn’t be a prank. The organization in the bedroom was all Jason, the room was familiar. He had a vague idea of where everything in this house was even though he didn’t know how he got here.

Jason had gone to bed in June and he had somehow woken up in March three years later.

When Jason finally ventured downstairs a few hours later, he still felt like a stranger in this home. A look outside had revealed he was in a Gotham suburb, one of the nicer ones that Jason never should have been able to afford. A look at his bank statement had revealed a steady income with a mortgage that he was paying every month and a slow growing 401k. Three years ago, Jason had been 24 and still figuring out his life, now he was 27 and he owned a house, had a bachelor's in English Literature, and a steady job. 

All of those things had been goals in his head, but he hadn’t been in the right place to pursue them. He needed to save up more, he needed to do this, and do that, but for some reason, Jason never got the chance to jump start into it. Something had happened though, and three years later, Jason was here. It also meant Jason was three years older somehow.

He went to through the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom and looked in the mirror. He brought his hand up to the most obvious change, a white stripe above his left eyebrow. That definitely hadn’t been there when he went to sleep. It also wasn’t in any of the pictures on the dresser or on his phone. It was soft, like the rest of his hair, with no signs of being bleached. The rest of his hair was cut a little differently but it was pretty much the same otherwise. He had gotten older though, that much was clear. His shoulders were broader, he’d gotten into pretty good shape, and he was a bit taller. He didn’t have any wrinkles, but his face looked a little more grown up. Overall, he looked healthy and hadn’t done anything radical to his body in the past three years.

He leaned back, noticed the apprehension in his glance, and forced his eyes away. He looked down at his hands and stopped when he saw a white gold band on his left ring finger. It felt like a blow to the chest to see the ring there, and Jason knew deep down it was a wedding band. He’d gotten married but somehow he didn’t remember his own husband or wife. God, he didn’t even know the gender of his own fucking spouse. It felt like something that had been staring in his face all morning. The small touches that Jason wouldn’t have thought to add, the colors that Jason never would have painted the walls, even the empty spaces in the drawers and closet.

He went to the kitchen and opened the cabinets. They were well stocked with all the food Jason usually bought, but there were three boxes of Crocky Crunch, a sugar filled cereal Jason never even touched. There were snack brands that Jason had never tried, the dish soap was the foam when Jason usually preferred the gel, and the paper towels had little flowers on them when Jason always bought plain. Someone else had an overwhelming presence in this home and it was on the edge of Jason’s tongue, like a word he had forgotten right as he tried to say it. A name and face his in the back of his mind, but even worse, it left a presence in this house, and an overwhelming hole in his heart. It felt like the hole was growing, and there was nothing Jason could do to stop it.

 

-

 

Jason shot up in bed, a cold sweat on his skin, soaking his shirt and the sheets. A train horn sounded in the distance along with the ringing of the railroad crossing sign that was less than a block away from the motel. He reached over to the sheets next to him, but his hand touched a cool, ratty bedspread instead of warmth from another person. Jason cursed and brought his hand back to his body like he’d been burnt. Two years and he still expected someone to be there when he woke up. The absence of the body was wrong, but Jason had no idea whose body he missed, only that someone should have been there next to him.

He looked at the clock on the nightstand, it was early, probably too early, but he knew he wasn’t going to get anymore sleep tonight. Not after waking up from dreams that were already fading out of his mind. He would spend the rest of the night chasing them as they danced away from his grasp like smoke that was a second away from vanishing into the air. He went into the dingy bathroom and turned on the light, it flickered and made the bathroom look even worse.  Jason grabbed the threadbare and rust stained towel and hopped into a cold shower.

He closed his eyes as the cold water beat over his skin and he focused on the strange sense of longing in his chest, the lingering reminder that something wasn’t right. He had woken up one morning and it had been there, but Jason hadn’t known why. All he knew was that something was wrong. For months, everything around him had a strange unfamiliarity like Jason had been in a fugue state and somehow ended up in a place he knew only in passing. It was like a dream, he knew where he was, but he had no idea how he’d gotten there. Jason had spent weeks trying to regain stability in his life. He had to catch up on events he’d missed, figure out the job that felt new to him, and deal with waking up alone in the mornings knowing that so much was missing from his life. The feeling in his chest had lessened but it hadn’t ever gone away.

Some mornings Jason would wake up and the feeling would be worse. Some days held significance but he didn’t know why. One day in particular made the ache in his chest worse, March 20. He didn’t know why, but as the day approached every year, Jason felt like he needed to make preparations. It was the first day of spring, but aside from being the day when Jason had come to awareness again, it held no other significance. It was some kind of holiday to him, a day of reverence, but Jason didn’t know why.

One day he realized he could follow the feeling in his chest. It was like a tether, pulling him towards something. As March 20th approached, Jason decided to get in his car and figure out what the root of the problem was. He knew it was crazy and that he probably wouldn’t find anything, but each night spent in a motel as he got closer to the feeling, his dreams got worse. The emptiness in his chest grew into this unbearable thing and Jason was reminded that what he was missing was a someone. He would wake up on many occasions with his arms wrapped around a pillow and for a split second, he would think it was a person.

Jason turned off the shower and toweled himself off, it was rough against his skin and it pulled him out of his thoughts. Jason knew he was getting closer to his destination. He had been following the feeling in his chest like some kind of compass and it had taken him out west. Right now Jason was in a small town in Kansas, the worn out sign had said there were only few hundred people that lived there, and to them Jason was just another person passing through for the night. The face of the motel clerk matched that of all the other ones he’d seen on his way here: tired eyes, faded clothing, all made worse by dingy lighting. This town knew they were just a highway stop, but they didn’t quite know how to escape it.

Jason changed into a fresh set of clothes. He had packed a large duffle bag and left his home behind, not sure when or if he was going to be back. Jason was running out of fresh clothes which made him wonder how much longer he was going to be on this journey, what would happen to him. He slipped on a black tee and then a shoulder holster, slipping the glock into place. He didn’t know what it was he was heading towards, but if it was haunting Jason like this, he knew that it could be dangerous.

He put on his leather jacket and grabbed his keys from the dresser. He looked in the mirror at himself and brought a hand up to the white stripe above his bangs. He still wasn’t used to it, but it was one of the only tangible pieces of evidence proving to him that something had happened. Before the three year blur in his memories, Jason had black hair, and as far as he knew, his hair had been black until the morning he woke up from it all.

“Checking out?” the clerk at the night desk looked like some kind of art installation. He was watching an old tv that was more static than picture and he had a stained mug that had once been white sitting in front of him.

“Yeah,” Jason replied as he slid the key across the counter.

“Okay then,” the man said as he took the key. He turned around and Jason adjusted the bag over his shoulder before he stepped out the door. It was still dark out, but Jason didn’t mind. At this time of night the highway would be relatively empty and Jason wasn’t in the mood to wait in traffic right now. He tossed his bag in the car and got going again.

On the road, it was almost too easy to get lost in his thoughts again. He had the doubts that would trickle into his head that maybe this was some strange fever dream. Jason still had to go on this journey though. He had to clear up all the things that were lingering in his head, all the thoughts and feelings that felt like they’d been locked up in a vault and hidden from him. He hated how he’d lost a part of himself and this was his way to redeem that. He’d find the source of his problem or he’d spend a few weeks in the mountains until he accepted he had gone a little out of his mind for a few years.

If this was all something in his head, Jason still had a plan. He’d been in his house for the past two years feeling like it belonged to a stranger and not to him. Jason had grown up in Gotham, he loved living there, so he had no idea how he’d ended up in one of Gotham’s suburbs. He had started a new life in the three years he didn’t remember, and Jason had decided he was going to start over again. He would move somewhere he wanted, he would arrange the house the way he wanted instead of wondering why he had put the forks to the left in the silverware drawer when he could have sworn he preferred them on the right.

Jason rubbed his forehead and took the next exit off the highway. It didn’t take much driving over the worn out roads to find a faded neon sign that advertised alcohol. Jason pulled into the parking lot and made his way inside. There were a few men hunched over at the bar and some old country song playing over the speakers, but Jason didn’t care, he needed a drink.

He sat down and ordered himself a straight whiskey. He felt the burn of eyes looking at him and he did his best to ignore them. Ever since he’d woken up that morning, Jason had noticed that people were drawn to him, but not just any person.

“You new in town?” The man’s voice was low and husky, slurred from a heavy accent and one too many drinks.

“Just passing through,” Jason said.

“Good, good,” the man said. “Best not to linger here, especially at night. Don’t want no lights stealing you away?”

Jason closed his eyes and bit back a sigh. “Oh really?”

“Yeah,” the other man piped up from across the bar. “Strange things happen here at night. Aliens. That’s what it is. They took my dog.”

“And my wife,” the first man said.

“I thought that was more of a Roswell thing,” Jason said, grateful when his drink arrived. He sipped at it and the whiskey burned on the way down, but he didn’t care. There was something in his head that said he shouldn’t be drinking whiskey, a small insistent voice that told him he’d quit drinking it. Jason drank more to spite it.

“No one talks about it here,” the first man said. “We think the government stops them.”

“Jim,” the bartender spoke up. “Don’t you go scaring away out of towners with your stories.” He shot Jason a pitying look. If only he knew, Jason had been hearing these types of stories for years now.

“I’m used to it,” Jason said. “But I think I should be going. I have a long journey ahead of me.” He pulled a ten out of his wallet and placed it down on the bar. “Keep the change.”

“Aren’t you going to finish your drink?” The bartender raised a concerned eyebrow.

Jason shook his head, the feeling in his chest whenever people talked about strange things, the paranormal and supernatural, they only got worse with alcohol. “I’m not in a drinking mood anymore.” He nodded towards the two other men at the bar. “Gentlemen.” As he made his way out, he could hear the bartender telling them off for scaring him away.

It wasn’t the stories that scared Jason away, he’d heard plenty of them. It was the way he was reminded that he might have been the victim to one of those strange oddities that people only talked about at night with strangers. Deep down, Jason feared he would become one of those men in a bar late at night telling strangers his stories in hopes that someone, anyone would believe them.

He needed his own proof first, and that was why he was here. He was going to get it.

The rest of the drive was the same cycle of thoughts he’d been having for the past week. Plans upon plans of what he was going to do. The weight of the gun was heavy on his shoulder but he knew he needed it. As he crossed the border into Colorado and let his gut guide him, he had an imminent sense of danger, and some strange feeling of rightness, like he was finally heading home. It was so out of place that Jason had to stop at a quiet gas station and go through the automatic car wash to hide the panic that was starting to mount within him.

When he finished, he felt like it wasn’t quite time yet, so he stopped by a convenience store to grab some snacks and looked up the nearest laundromat. He wandered around and grabbed a few drinks and snacks, but it wasn’t until he was handing the cashier the cash that he realized he didn’t even like Zesti Cola or PizzaFish snacks, he had bought them out of instinct, as if someone else liked them and that Jason was getting them for that person.

Jason started on his laundry and read through a book he’d brought with him, trying to ignore the dog eared pages. He never dog eared his pages, but half his books had the marks, including all his favorites. Jason had too much pride and sentimental feelings towards them to let them go, but they felt like a reminder, an open wound that had yet to heal. He tried to focus on the words, but found that he was rereading the same sentence over and over again.

“Oh you poor thing,” a breathy voice said from next to him.

Jason startled. He’d been alone in the laundromat, and the bell on the door should have told him when someone was coming in. He was caught in the gaze of the stranger for a moment because he was so beautiful. He had luminous eyes that were a strange combination of blue and silver, along with skin that looked like it was under moonlight and not harsh fluorescents. He was distinctly inhuman, eerily familiar, and he was looking at Jason with pity in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” Jason said after a few long moments.

“I was wondering if I could help you, actually,” the creature said. Even his clothing looked too fine for this place. “You’ve lost something great and you don’t know what it is.”

“Uh, yeah,” Jason said.

“I could fill that hole in your chest. It wouldn’t be for long, but I could make it better.”

It felt like Jason was toying with something powerful here, like if he let this creature fill the hole in his chest, he’d end up with a larger one in its place. Thoughts of fairy rings and other tricks came to mind, people following sweet laughter and beautiful faces until they were trapped in a beautiful place but never able to leave. Or if they did escape, their sanity was always left behind.

There’s also a small part of him that feels like letting this creature touch him is cheating somehow. Not only to get rid of the emptiness inside him, but like it’ll cling onto Jason, filling him with guilt because someone would be disappointed. So disappointed.

“No thanks,” Jason said. “I can take care of my own problems.”

The creature made a soft noise of discontent before he sighed and looked Jason over. “If you can’t another one of us will probably find you again,” he said. “We’re always waiting just out of the corner of your eye.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t be creepy about it.”

He heard laughter, like the soft sound of glass wind chimes, and then a soft rush of air at his side. He looked over and the creature was gone, a pale blue forget-me-not left in its place. Jason let the flower be, smart enough not to take fey trinkets, and nothing else bothered him while he waited for his laundry to finish.

It was sunset by the time Jason finally felt like the time was right and worked up the nerve to go. He drove through a pretty suburb taking it all in. The lawns were manicured and there were white picket fences, gardens, and houses that looked like they were out of home and garden magazines. It was like a maze where the streets were named after trees, and the mountains felt like they were starting to close in. Jason was driving down a street at the edge of the neighborhood when he saw a house with a balloon tied to the mailbox, bouncing in the breeze. There were cars parked along the street and Jason knew that this was it. This was the place.

He parked the car a little down the block. He really hadn’t been expecting this. Jason had thought this urge would take him to a worn out warehouse, a mountaintop somewhere, or something more ominous. Not a house with a manicured lawn, a two car garage, and a front porch. It was so suburban and it was so much like the small house Jason had woken up in that it felt like a blow to the chest. Jason looked at the gun that he’d been keeping in his glove box. Did he really need it? What kind of monster would be hiding in a place like this? Either a harmless one or one that was even more dangerous than Jason could imagine. He knew that dangerous things hid in plain sight and this might be one of those things. He tucked the gun into the shoulder holster and took a few deep breaths to ground himself. Jason got out of the car and walked down the sidewalk. The air was cool and it was getting colder as the sun slipped below the horizon and behind a mountain in the distance.

Jason walked up to the house and he could hear faint music and laughter from inside. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the party wasn’t ideal, but it was an in. He put his hand on the doorknob and wasn’t surprised when the door opened. The entryway was bright, but there was no one milling around. Jason shut the door behind him and forced himself not to linger as he passed a comfortable looking living room with decor that matched his own home to an uncanny degree. There were birthday decorations strewn around the house, string lights and streamers along with colorful paper lanterns that cast the house in a warm glow. There were small banners that read “happy birthday” and Jason felt like something clicked. That was what today was. It was a birthday.

Jason followed the hallway towards the back of the house towards the noise, his footsteps quiet. He made his way into a kitchen and another living room and he settled in at the back of the crowd. There was a cake on the counter that hadn’t been cut into yet and Jason saw a kitchen table piled high with presents. Then Jason saw him.

He was beautiful. His skin was golden and his black hair looked like silk, falling in a soft wave over his forehead and tucked behind his ear. He had bright blue eyes that were more brilliant than any ocean or gem, and lit up with laughter and a smile, Jason realized that the warm feeling spreading in his chest was love. He loved this man. More than anything else in the world.

“Thank you for the lovely present,” he said to a small child sitting in his lap. The child couldn’t have been more than a year old. “Daddy’s going to frame it and put it on his dresser so he sees it every morning.” He placed a kiss on top of the child’s head and as he was rising again his eyes met Jason’s.

The room went silent and that’s when Jason realized he was holding the gun and aiming it at the stranger. His hand was shaking, but it wasn’t with fear, it was with rage. The desolate feeling in his chest from seeing this stranger with another family. This stranger had been his, Jason was sure of it, and it felt like he was being stabbed in the chest at seeing this heartwarming scene while he’d been alone picking up the pieces of a heart that had shattered. For a stranger to evoke all of these emotions, Jason felt like he was in danger, like there was something so skewed and wrong about the whole party.

“I take it you’re here for me,” the stranger said, and it felt so strange to have this face and voice addressing him. Jason felt tears in his eyes but he refused to let them fall. Not in front of this man who had so much power over him when Jason could have sworn he’d never seen this man in his life.

“I am,” Jason said, forcing his voice to stay steady. It still came out as a low wavering growl. Threatening to anyone else, but there was a faint twitch in the stranger’s brow that Jason shouldn’t have noticed and it said he was faintly amused.

“I’m going to hand him off and then you and I are going to go somewhere private to talk. If we do that, you’re going to have to put the gun away.”

Jason felt all the eyes on the room glaring into him. He wondered what this must have looked like to all of them. Some stranger coming in during their friend’s birthday party and holding him up with a gun.

“Alright,” Jason said as he turned the safety back on and slipped it back into the holster.

“Ricky,” a slim woman said when the stranger stood up and handed off the child. “What are you doing?”

“It’s all going to be okay Babs,” Ricky said as he kissed her on the cheek. “We just need to talk for a little bit. Everyone stay here and don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” He headed towards Jason. “Come with me,” he said and Jason knew he’d heard Ricky say it before. Images of warm sighs and soft bedsheets flitted across his vision. Jason could have sworn that the smooth voice was the one that haunted his dreams.

They went back to the entryway and up a set of curving stairs and down a hallway. Jason felt like everything was coming to a head as they walked. The strange sense of deja vu could have been anything and this could have been a true stranger. That realization sunk into Jason, cold and heavy, as they stopped. Ricky opened the door up to a bedroom and Jason stepped inside. Ricky locked the door behind him and they stared at each other for a long moment.

“Hello, Jason,” he said. It was like watching a mask fall away. “I’m honestly surprised that you found me.”

Jason was caught by surprise. He had expected a lot of things, but the familiarity with which the stranger said his name wasn’t one of them. “How do you know my name?” Jason asked, taking a step back. The cool look on Rick’s face said he knew more about this situation than Jason did and it made him feel strangely overpowered despite the fact he still had a gun strapped to his shoulder. Jason shouldn’t be at a disadvantage here, but part of him screamed that he should have expected it. “What am I doing here? Why did I feel the need to find you?”

“We knew each other,” Ricky said like it was simple. Like they were college roommates or childhood friends.

“But I don’t even know who you are.” Jason shook his head.

“You did,” he said. “Though I wasn’t Ricky when you knew me. Does Dick sound a little more familiar?”

It felt like Jason had been struck in the chest again. _Dick_. He felt so attached to this man and he almost couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his name. Forgetting Dick’s name felt like Jason had forgotten part of himself. “What are you?” Jason asked. “And what did you do to me?”

“That’s kind of a long story,” Dick said. “Because you shouldn’t remember me. I did everything I could to make you forget, but I guess three years is a long time and I did get pretty attached to you.”

“Stop dancing around the answers,” Jason said as he pulled the gun out again.

“That won’t do anything,” Dick whispered in his ear. Jason jumped because Dick had been standing in front of him a moment ago, and now the gun was out of his hands. “But I guess I’ll start explaining,” he said as he stepped around Jason and put the gun on the dresser. There were pictures of Dick with the woman from downstairs there, along with pictures of the baby and of Dick with friends.

“Please,” Jason meant to make it a demand, but it left him sounding far more desperate than he wanted.

“I would ask you to sit down, but I know you prefer to stand. You’ve always been stubborn like that.” Dick said as he plopped down on the mattress, falling back onto the blue bedspread. He sat up and pushed his hair out of his face. “The white stripe in your hair, the feeling of constant deja vu, and the fog in your memory. That’s me,” Dick said. “I can tell you everything that happened, but three years is a lot to cover, so why don’t I just give it back.” Dick got up and he stepped over to Jason and held a hand up. Jason fought the urge to touch him, to compare hands. It was like some kind of muscle memory.

“Get away from me,” he growled.

“Don’t you want your memories back?” Dick asked as he wiggled his fingers. His voice was teasing, far too light for the situation.“If you want them back, you have to let me touch you.”

Jason felt like a child that was being chastised. He looked into Dick’s eyes and the way Dick stared at him said that he was used to dealing with Jason. It made his skin crawl, but he sighed. “Fine.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Dick asked with a small smile as he brought his hand back up and pressed it to Jason’s temple. “I’ve never really done this before,” Dick said. “The whole giving memories back thing, but you should be okay.” A look of concentration passed over his face and Jason cried out in pain. It felt like his skull was being split open.

He fell down to his knees and he was glad there was a thick carpet on the floor, otherwise it would have hurt when he collapsed down onto it. The memories flooded back into his head. Meeting Dick in a park in Gotham, going on dates with him, eating takeout in Jason’s apartment, sleeping together, laughing together. He had told Dick everything about himself, and Dick told him everything in return. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, woke up together. Jason remembered looking at Dick’s face and thinking he’d never loved someone as much as he loved Dick. There were flashes of Dick laughing. Jason and Dick had gone on road trips together, camping in the mountains, swimming in cool rivers and lakes. They bought a house together in the suburbs of Gotham.  Jason and Dick had made love on the counters, they had slept on the floor while they waited for their mattress to arrive. Jason remembered asking Dick to marry him, voice low as their fingers and bodies were intertwined. Then there was the look on Dick’s face as Jason slipped the ring onto his finger and kissed his husband. Dick had been his husband. Years of memories all came back, the years long fog was finally clearing.

Jason got to his feet, but he still felt dizzy. Dick was on the bed leaning against the pillows. Jason didn’t know how long he’d been trapped in the stream of his lost memories, it could have been hours or seconds and Dick’s face betrayed nothing.

“Why did you leave?” Jason asked. “Why...how did you make me forget?”

“It’s what I do,” Dick said, a frown on his face. “I had already stayed with you for too long and gotten too attached. I...I had to go.”

“Or what?” Jason asked.

“Or I would become mortal,” Dick said with a shrug.

“What do you mean ‘become mortal’?” Jason asked, stung by the casual way Dick had dismissed him. They had been married and Dick left him after all the love they shared because he didn’t want to stay mortal.“And why was being a mortal with me so bad? Why would it have been worse than this?”

“It wouldn’t have been bad,” Dick shook his head. “It would have been perfect, but it’s just not what I am, Jason.”

“And what are you?” Jason asked.

“The closest term humans have for it is a will o’the wisp,” Dick told him. “I come into people’s lives and when I’m a part of it, a part of them, I take that part with me and it gives me life. They forget who I am, a lot of the details of what happened, and most of the traces of me are erased from their life. It allows me to stay young like this. The more part of someone’s life you are, the more life you get in return,” Dick paused and looked into Jason’s eyes. He’d spent so much time looking into those eyes it was hard to believe he’d forgotten them. “But sometimes you form attachments and the person seeks out the part of themselves that they lost. That’s what you did.”

“How many times have you done it,” Jason asked Dick as he leaned against the bedroom wall. It was like his legs didn’t want to hold him up anymore, not when he was standing in front of something that had taken a part of his life. “How many times have you done this thing where you come into someone’s life and leave them?”

“I’ve been doing it since the 1800’s,” Dick said. “Sometimes for a long time, and sometimes not long at all.”

Jason looked at the ceiling. Everything else in the room was a reminder of the life he and Dick had together. Dick’s taste was distinctive everything from the decor to the colors of the walls and carpets echoed the home they had once shared. “Define a long time and not long at all.”

“Sometimes I’ll get what I need in a few hours or days,” Dick said. “But a lot of the time, I get the most from people that I spend a year or so with. I usually spend a year or two with someone. More than two and...it causes problems. I’ll start to age, or if I leave, sometimes they’re always haunted by it and they don’t know why. And sometimes, if I enjoyed my time with them, they’re able to seek me out again.”

“How many people have you been with since you left?”

“A few people to get over you, and then I met Barbara,” Dick said. “I’ve been with her for almost two years now. I was actually planning on leaving her in the next month or so.”

Jason didn’t know how to feel right now. This was the man that he had loved, but Dick had left him. Dick had taken a part of what Jason was and left. He had made a family with someone else and he was going to leave them too. He said it like it was so simple too, like he hadn’t formed an emotional attachment to this woman, like they weren’t married with a child.“But you have a son.”

“Which is why I’m going to make sure Barbara has money,” Dick said. “I didn’t think I was going to see the whole thing through, but I had to make sure I set something up for them.”

“Do you love her?”

Dick sighed. “Jason,” he started.

“Answer the question, Dick, do you love her?”

“Of course I do,” Dick said. “And I love my son too.”

“But you’re going to leave them,” Jason said. He refused the ask the questions that were nagging at him. Did Dick love Barbara more than he loved Jason? He didn’t bother asking about the son, Jason would never be able to interfere with the love there.

Dick sighed again. “Yes,” he said.

Jason made his way to the bed and collapsed down there next to Dick. For a time in his life, he’d felt like he’d known Dick better than he knew himself. He still remembered all the details of his body, the things that made him cry out in pleasure. He remembered other things too, Dick’s favorite foods, his love of romance movies, his dislike of geese. “Why did you stay with me for so long?” Jason asked.

“Because I loved you more than anyone else,” Dick said. “And I wish that was a lie, but it’s not. And I wish that love had gone away. It was one of the reasons I let Barbara keep John, I thought that maybe if I made this family, I would forget the love I had for you, but I never did. I mean, you were always stubborn, Jason, but it was like that part of you that I took was determined to remind me how much of a mistake it was to leave you.”

“Do you mean that?” Jason asked as he looked up at Dick. If Dick was really a strange creature that flitted from person to person forming attachments and then leaving them, he could have been a lying and Jason wouldn’t have known.

“Yes,” Dick said and the look in his eyes was the same one that radiated truth when Dick had said he loved Jason. He looked into those blue eyes and allowed himself to get lost in them again because it was so easy. Dick had always been the most beautiful thing Jason had ever seen, and now he knew that beauty was supernatural. “Jason,” Dick whispered, and it felt so right when their lips connected. Kissing Dick was like returning home, it felt better than getting his memories back and finding out what the source of his pain had been. It reminded Jason of all the nights and days they had spent together in the throes of pleasure.

But this was someone else’s house and if the white gold band on Dick’s ring finger told him anything, it was that Dick belonged to someone else now, even if Dick left them in a few days, weeks, or months. Downstairs, there a celebration was going on for Dick and Jason was the intruder.

He pulled away from the kiss, breaking away felt like waking up from a dream and Jason didn’t want to wake up. “I should go,” Jason whispered, their breath mingling.

Dick looked at Jason’s mouth and then sighed, leaning back. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I have a party waiting for me downstairs.” It was an attempt at lightheartedness but it fell flat.

Jason forced himself to get up and he went to the dresser, grabbing the gun and putting it back in the holster. Jason went to the door and he stood there for a long moment, eyes squeezed shut, trying to push back the tears that Dick was responsible for. Even when Jason hadn’t remembered him, he’d shed so many tears for Dick. Did Dick know? Did he even care? Probably not.

“Goodbye, Dick,” Jason said as he opened the door, walking away before Dick could even respond. He went down the hallway, noticing the pictures on the walls. There was one from a wedding, another from the hospital where John must have been born, one of Barbara at the Grand Canyon, and one of Dick and Barbara sharing a kiss.

There was a small crowd waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Barbara was standing there holding John tightly to her chest and glaring at him. He wanted to warn her, but Jason couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Everyone stared at him as he walked out the front door. Jason wondered why they hadn’t called the police, but then he distantly thought Dick probably had something to do with it as he got back in his car and pulled out of the neighborhood. It hurt to drive away, but he had his memories back, even if it felt worse to have them back in his head.

Jason wanted to feel relieved that he hadn’t come out all this way for nothing, but he still felt empty inside. He watched the neighborhood grow smaller in the distance as the hole inside him grew wider. It wasn’t like the tug in his chest he’d felt before, which had been an urge to follow the lost part of him. Instead, it had been replaced by the feeling that he’d gotten that part of himself back, but without Dick in his life, he was still incomplete.

When Jason got back home, he couldn’t force himself back into the house. He lingered at the front door as the tears that had been waiting to fall finally left him. He knew his neighbors were probably watching, but as Jason sat on the front porch and cried, he didn’t care.

Jason sold his house. He sold the things that reminded him of Dick but it didn’t help. Eventually he got a new place for himself in Gotham. It was nicer than his first apartment and Jason understood what Dick had meant when he said he left people better off. Five years ago, Jason wouldn’t have been able to afford a new house. Dick had encouraged him to finish school, and then Jason had gotten a great job because of it. He hated to admit that even though Dick had left, Dick had improved his life.

He went back to work and at the end of the day he would go home, make a meal for one, and then stare at the empty space in his bed. Sometimes he would do laundry and look at the small pile of clothing, wondering where the color was and why there wasn’t another pile to fold. Other times he would stare at a box of Crocky Crunch that he picked up at the store but never ended up eating because he hated sugary cereals.

After Dick had left the first time, Jason had tried to fill the empty space inside him with other people. Serious relationships never got far enough, they always said he was too distracted, and quick flings never satisfied him the way he thought they should have. He thought he needed a warm body by his side, but even that wasn’t true. Jason needed Dick.

Jason was sitting on his couch reading when he heard a knock at the door. He’d ordered thai food a few minutes before, but it was too soon for the food to be there. He looked through the peephole in the door and he froze. He took a step back and shook his head. No. This couldn’t be happening. He looked through it again but he wasn’t seeing things. Jason opened the door and standing there, in a hoodie Jason had forgotten he’d ever owned, was Dick.

They stared at each other for a long moment and then Jason didn’t know who moved first, but Dick was in his arms again. The lean form of his body was just as warm as it always had been, he even smelled the same, like fresh rain. Jason pulled him inside and looked at him. He looked at Dick in his arms again after so long and he shook his head.

“What are you doing here?”

“I tried so hard, Jason,” Dick said. “But I want you, I want you more than anything else.” His voice wasn’t teary, it wasn’t some scene out of a romance, and Jason felt a chill up his spine. Why had he pulled Dick close like this? Why hadn't he just slammed the door after he'd tried so hard to move on?

“What about Barbara...and John?” Jason hated to admit it, but he’d spent many nights awake thinking about what might happen to Dick’s wife and little son when he eventually left them again.

“I left,” Dick said. “I left and they’ve forgotten. I stayed behind for a few days and she’s okay. He’s okay. I promise.” He stepped forward into Jason’s apartment and placed his hands on Jason’s chest. Jason felt his head swim. “Please,” he looked into Jason’s eyes. “I need you.”

Jason wanted to laugh because Dick couldn’t possibly know the need that had haunted him since Dick left. But the intense look in Dick’s eyes made it feel like a dam was breaking inside him. The longer Dick looked at him, the more his thoughts about why this was a terrible idea faded away. Everything else seemed to vanish until the only thought in his head was Dick. Dick’s eyes, his cheekbones, his hair, his mouth. Dick pulled him into a rough kiss and it was familiar but somehow like the first time. The first few kisses were all teeth and tongue as they tried to explore each other’s mouths again, but as they went back to Jason’s bedroom, shedding clothes as they went, they fell into a familiar rhythm. Jason knew the way Dick liked to be kissed.

They fell onto the bed and made out for a few minutes before Jason grew impatient. There were too many parts of Dick he wanted to see again. He kissed down Dick’s neck, grinning when Dick still made that soft noise when Jason sucked the sensitive spot below his ear. He nipped at Dick’s collarbones, and moved down his chest, swirling his tongue around Dick’s nipples and watching the way Dick’s back arched.

Dick had abandoned his pants in the hallway and he was in the process of pushing Jason’s down. “You’re still so beautiful,” Jason said. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, Dick.” Dick moaned underneath him as Jason slipped a hand under the waistband of his boxer briefs, wrapping a hand around his hot cock and pumping. It still felt like Dick’s cock belonged there.

“Jason, please,” Dick’s voice was breathy with want and Jason leaned in to kiss him again. He kept the kiss slow, but he made sure it was deep, their mouths moving together like they had all the time in the world. If Dick was here to stay, maybe they did have all the time in the world.

“Okay,” Jason said as he sucked at Dick’s bottom lip before reaching for the nightstand and grabbing a bottle of lube and some condoms. He dropped them at Dick’s side and opened up the bottle of lube and coated his fingers. He slid one inside and Dick made a noise that was so wanton and dirty, Jason stopped for a few moments to stare. Maybe Dick really had missed him that much. It filled Jason with a strange sense of pride that Dick, this strange creature, came back to him of all people. He moved his finger slowly, remembering how to stretch Dick out. He found Dick’s prostate and worked it until Dick was saying a variety of things in tongues Jason didn’t understand.

He finished stretching Dick out and he grabbed a condom, putting it on and then spreading lube over his cock. He already felt so close just from looking at Dick and milking all the different sweet noises from him so he could hear them again.

“Ready?” Jason asked as he lined himself up with Dick.

“Yeah.” Dick was a mess against the pillows, mouth pink and swollen, kiss bruises along his neck and collarbone, his chest was flushed, his hair was everywhere, but he looked happy and he practically glowed with it.

“Okay,” Jason pushed inside and he knew this was where he belonged. There was no one else that felt as good as Dick. No one as tight or hot. He almost came right then and there, needing to rest his head on Dick’s shoulder. “Fuck I forgot how good you felt, Dick.”

Dick made a helpless noise. “Says the man with the amazing cock.”

Jason laughed and started moving, filling the apartment with the sounds of their moans as he thrusted into Dick. He lost himself in the feeling of it, the wet slide of Dick around him, the way Dick breathed his name like it was holy. It was like every other time he’d had sex was building up to this perfect moment. Dick’s eyes were shut and his mouth was open, his cock leaking precome onto his belly. Jason sped up his thrusts as he felt himself getting closer and then his orgasm hit him hard, wave after wave of pleasure as his hips kept moving. Dick’s legs tightened around his waist and he felt Dick spill between them, a hot ribbon of come on their chests.

Jason wrapped a hand around Dick to milk his orgasm as he stilled his own hips, collapsing down on top of Dick.

“I love you,” Dick said as he kissed Jason’s temple. “More than anyone else I’ve ever met or been with.” Part of Jason still had trouble believing that, but those feelings faded away as he pulled Dick closer.

“I love you too,” he said. Jason felt like he was in a daze, but it felt so good. “More than anything else, Dick.”

“I’m going to stay,” Dick whispered. “I promise. This time I’m going to stay.”

“I hope you do,” Jason whispered as he grabbed some tissues to clean them off. He tied off the condom and threw it to the side as Dick slid under the covers. Jason slid up next to him and they settled into the comfortable position that they had always slept in all those years before. Jason buried his nose in Dick’s hair, it was as soft as it had always been.

  
For the first time in years, Jason fell asleep feeling complete again.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Amazing art by Penta [here](https://pentapoda.tumblr.com/post/165062203362/a-batfamreversebigbang-prompt-for-carbonjen). 
> 
> Originally I wasn't going to take place in this challenge, I was just going to pinch hit and not claim a piece for myself. I fell in love with this piece though, something about it drew me in and I knew I had to write a fic for it. Long drives for work and lots of music by the Killers gave me an interesting idea that I feel fits the picture. 
> 
> Many thanks to Empires for the cheerleading and comments/chats.


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